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Well I didn't get photos as I changed the water between rain showers today but it's getting quite interesting. As I mentioned to some after last time the bones now help tell some of Kamena's story.

All those little discs are parts of the spine. It was explained each vertebrae is several pieces until they fuse with age, usually early on in life. There are several other bones that would normally fuse with age like the ends of the joints have bone caps that would normally have fused to one humerus(arm bone) for example. To see what I mean go to this site See where it points out the epiphyseal line? That line isn't sealed on Kamena's bones so is a cap there(separate piece). There was even a little "cap" bone on the scapula but not sure where that would be in the picture I linked too.

What does all that mean? Well assuming that tamanduas bones do not fuse really late in life for some reason it means Kamena was a very sick boy with a long term(chronic) underlying condition. It means he was likely doomed no matter what we might have done differently. I lost the site I read about it on but there was a long list of possible causes basics being genetic, congenital and or environmental. Malnutrition growing up was one possible cause but even if it was that and things had been done differently and we had "saved" him nothing would reverse the damage and he wouldn't likely have had a long healthy life.

So on to something that is simply interesting to me. Since I didn't take photos today here is one from the web

Now the reason for that is the claw. The claws slid off and underneath is a pointy claw shaped bone which is also part of that big knuckle as one bone. So in the photo above the pointy claw bone would come out about half way in the claw with the claw covering it like a sheath but tucked into that knuckle bone. If you can't picture it I will get real pictures eventually.